Meeting with Editorial Board Member at Dallas Morning News

This Monday, my husband, my son and I joined a meeting with the Dallas Morning News Editorial Board members with members from the SEED Coalition, which is working very hard on environmental issues here in Texas. They are also against nuclear energy, and they believe that nukes should not be considered as a power source option .

At the meeting, we had an opportunity to share our experience of evacuating from our home in Japan, leaving everything behind. We also shared our strong belief that the risks we are taking for using nuclear energy is enormous and far greater than what we can actually handle once something goes wrong. Especially when less than 10% of energy is coming from nuclear here in Texas (Japan was at 30% and is now at less than 1%).

We emphasized that it does not make sense to use so much water when Texas is in the middle of the worst drought ever in known history. Plus, there is constant sunshine here, unlike Seattle or other places in the world (not that nuclear makes sense in those regions, it just makes less sense in ours . . .).

We tried to explain and express how dangerous it is to use nuclear energy as much as we could to the Editorial Board members. I told them that we had learned it the hard way and hope that no one else has to go through the same experience.

Finally, we said that the reason we thought that the Japanese government is trying to present a view that minimizes the ongoing danger is that Japan has a monopoly in modern nuclear reactor vessels. This is an incredible economic incentive to minimize the ongoing events at Fukushima so that the Japanese nuclear industry can continue to sell to countries like Vietnam. This makes use of nuclear energy unethical, literally fueling the lies that the Japanese government tells its own people much like how "blood diamonds" fuel atrocities in Africa.

I hope that the Editorial Board members takes this issue and spread the word throughout Texas. I do not want to see another Fukushima disaster anywhere else in the world. I also do not want there to be any economic incentive for Japan to continue put residents around Fukushima in harm's way. Those residents include the friends and family we left behind, and we will do what ever we can to help ensure that they are safe once again.